Hebrews: The Blessing of the Resurrection
Pastor Fletcher concludes our Hebrews study with Hebrews 13:20-25 on this Easter Sunday. Discussion points: We learn from Hebrews that God is a God of peace and a God who rescues, to be blessed by God is to do his work and his will, God has given us the grace and help to do his will rather than needing to try to be good enough ourselves.
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Scripture reader: [Hebrews 13:20-25] Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do His will, working in us that which is pleasing in His sight through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.
I appeal to you brothers, bear with my word of exhortation, for I have written to you briefly. You should know that our brother Timothy has been released, with whom I shall see you if he comes soon. Greet all your leaders and all the saints. Those who come from Italy send you greetings. Grace be with all of you.
This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Preacher: All right, well, they gave me a large stage today. So, I have, we, there was a concert in here last night, and they set up a, a max, a, a huge stage, and here I am, I get to use it. So, sorry if it feels a bit imposing on you, but. I'm just going to enjoy having the stage. I also love how this passage ends. we've been studying the book of Hebrews for the past 20 weeks. It's week 21. We're finishing up the book of Hebrews, and, it ends just with this great, it's just classic, indication that this is a letter that the Bible is oftentimes made up of letters. The New Testament, it's just several letters to early churches, and it says those in Italy send their greetings, which I like to imagine. People in Italy are greeting us this morning. So, those in Italy are greeting us this morning.
We've been going through this whole series for 20 weeks now, week 21, and. A lot of times on these holidays, we will go to a different, we'll go to a different passage, we'll study something more exactly connected with what is represented with Easter. We'd be looking at the resurrection account, or the or 1 Corinthians 15 where it talks about Jesus raising over death. But as we've studied Hebrews, one thing that I've realized is Hebrews has been full of the cross of Christ, the cross of Christ, the cross of Christ, and the blood of Jesus, and only once in the entire book of Hebrews is the resurrection mentioned. He just saves the resurrection for the very climax of the book. It's like leads all up to this final word. This final benediction, and now, now the resurrection is dropped.
It says, May the God of peace who brought from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, who brought again from the dead. Today, we get to look at the final words of this letter that was written to the Hebrew people in the first century. And these final words serve as what we might call a benediction. Now we do a benediction every single Sunday. We, you've heard me say it before. If you've been here before, we begin with a call to worship. We end with a benediction, which is a blessing for the road. And so these are the final words or the final words of blessing given to the the people that this was written to.
And so it comes with power because here's something that we all know intuitively, is that final words have power. A person's final words have the power to bless you or curse you. There is just something about getting the final words in, about being able to say something to someone important. 5 years ago, my father died, and I've was not close with my father. He divorced my mother when I was 5 years old. For the, say, 10 years after that, my father was around sporadically. He would drive his Volkswagen bus with a bed in the back, back of it into town. He was living SNL style, Chris Farley down in a van by the river before that was cool. Now that's like an Instagram influencer life. That wasn't for him, OK? It was just his life.
And he would come and pick me up and we would have a great time. He worked at national parks all around the country. And would just go work maintenance or serve tables or whatever it might be at the national parks, and however he could make money. And so I would go with him for weeks at a time when I was a child. There would be years at a time when I wouldn't hear from him. And then about the time that I gave my life to Christ, I did not grow up in church. I started going to church when I was about 14 years old. I followed a girl there and was looking for love in all the wrong places. But I found a love that was much more satisfying. And the Lord saved me. I'm, is was not my wife. she is, she, she's much better than that, than, than that girl that I was chasing after at that time. The Lord saved me at that time. And around that time, when I met my Heavenly Father, my father stopped talking to me.
After I would say 16, I spoke with my father three times. Each time I called him. Each time the conversation was shorter than what I wanted. And I can't even tell you what his final words to me were. The final time I called him was when his brother died. No one in his family knew how to get in touch with him. And so I had to call him to deliver the news. And I'll tell you That When he died I mourned the death of my father. But I think I, I mourned the opportunity to receive his blessing more than anything. There's nothing that could matter more. To a child Than having that child's parents look them in the eye, or even just call them on the phone and say, You are my beloved son or daughter. I am pleased in you. So parents, let that be a message to us today. That you have work to do on this Easter, whether it be a phone call or a conversation over lunch. It's such a wonderful opportunity to be able to be given that sort of blessing.
But what I've come to realize. Is that I have a blessing better than any sort of parental blessing. That's a blessing from God Himself. Our heavenly Father, who's blessed us with a blessing beyond all comparison. This final passage in Hebrews does two things very importantly, in two simple verses. First, it reminds us of who God is. And second, it tells us how God would like to bless us.
So first, who is God? Verse 20 now may the God of peace, who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus Christ, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of his eternal covenant. In this one little verse, you have so much that you can learn about who God is. There's four different things at least that we can pick up here. First, we learn that God is a God of peace. Who is this God? He is a God of peace. AW Tozer is a famous author, and he says it like this. What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. Now that was a quote that I had to sit on for many years to decide if I agree with that or not. And I have come to wholeheartedly agree in that statement.
What is the most important thing about us is what comes into our mind when we first think about God. Because most of the time when we think about God, what comes into our mind is a judgmental grandparent kind of figure. That we just cannot seem to please. But Jesus reminds us of what the Father should be in our minds and in our hearts, that he is not a God of judgment, but rather the Father is a God of peace, that he desires to give us peace. Jesus reveals this in the upper room when he's speaking to his disciples, and he says in John 14, Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you, not as the world gives you. Gifts do I give it to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. Our God is a God of peace. Amen.
Second, he is the God who rescues. He is a God who rescues. The passage says, now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus. He brought Jesus back from the dead. He is risen. Many people think about the resurrection these days, like it, like. A big conspiracy theory, basically. You've seen these people who claim that the moon landing wasn't real, against all evidence and rationality that it is quite real. I'm here to say that I will, I will place my, I will place my bet on that one, that the moon landing actually happened. We're launching this, this new rocket into the space and. I don't believe it was a conspiracy theory.
But many times people treat the resurrection as if it was a conspiracy theory that someone just made this up, that it was all just brought together and friends. Let me just put it this way. There is an abundance of evidence for the resurrection. An abundance of evidence. I could go through so many different reasons why we could believe that God really did this thing. Where he brought Jesus back to life again, that the tomb was empty, that people's lives were changed forever, that the people who first saw Jesus recorded in every gospel, where the people who had the least likely reputability in the court of law, that women saw Jesus first. Their testimony wasn't even accepted in the court of law.
Why would anyone make up the story like that? Wouldn't you make someone make up someone that was more reputable to see him first, but instead, they chose women. Unless it actually happened that way. We have so many reasons to believe, and look, I can't go through them all, but this is what I'll do. I brought a few books. If you are interested, and most of us, I don't think I have to convince of the historicity of the resurrection. Most of us are here because we believe that he is risen. Thank you. You gotta sneak it in there whenever I sneak it in there. but if that is you, if you would like to know more about the resurrection and the reason why we believe this, there's great reasons. I have books. If you're gonna read it, just come get it, OK? I'm gonna leave it right there after the service, that's for you. You can grab one of those.
Our God brought Jesus back from the dead. He is risen. Our God is the God who rescues. When Jesus was dead in the grave, he made him alive again. And when we were dead in our sins, he made us alive in Christ.
The third thing that tells us about God is that God is the great shepherd of the sheep, that Jesus is the great shepherd, that he longs to guide us. John chapter 10 says, I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. A shepherd doesn't just watch over the sheep, but a shepherd protects the sheep, provides for them when the sheep cannot provide for themselves, that the sheep, that the shepherd is responsible for the sheep, that he goes after them when they go astray, and that is what Christ does for us.
And the fourth thing that we learned about God in this one short verse is that he is the architect of the new covenant. It says, now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep. By the blood of the eternal covenant. The question comes, how can he be a God of peace if we also know that God hates sin and we are sinful people. And the only answer to that is there must be a punishment for our sin. But it doesn't fall upon us. Instead, it comes through the blood of Christ, that the blood of the new covenant. Jesus, fully God and fully human, walked the earth for 33 years. He never sinned, and he taught us what it truly means to be human. And though he was sinless, he died the death that we all deserve to die on a Roman tool of execution, known as a cross.
And on that cross, Jesus paid the penalty for sin. In that cosmic moment, God took all of the sin that we've ever committed, every wrong thought, every wrong deed and placed it on Christ, that the wrath of God might be satisfied upon him. And so Jesus not only died this bloody death, But Jesus took on the weight of the sin of the world and died this cosmic death, this spiritual death on our behalf. As he's on the cross, Jesus is crying out, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? He experienced the forsakenness that our sin. deserves, and by the blood of Christ and eternal covenant was forged that God would look upon him instead of looking upon us. Jesus got what we deserved so that we can get what he deserved, the full blessing of God.
But he didn't stay dead. And on the third day, God rose him back to life again. And so this is the part of the sermon where we reach the so what? So we talk about the resurrection. Jesus has risen from the dead. So what? What does that matter to me today? How does that change my life at all? And here it is. Here it is. Here's what the resurrection matters for you today. The same God Who resurrected Jesus. He wants to bless you. With the power of the resurrection. The same God who resurrected Jesus, He wants to bless you.
And let's look at verse 21 and see how he wants to bless us. Verse 21. Now may this God that we just talked about, we established who he is, this four part sermon on who who God is. Now, how does he wanna bless us verse 21, that he might equip you with everything good, that you may do His will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. We serve the God who is all powerful, who owns the stars and the sky, the mountains. He could give you anything in the world. It says that if you ask in his name that he could move mountains. And so he could give you fame, fortune. All of the things that you long for, comfort, security.
But that is not what it means to be blessed. That's not what it means to be blessed. To be blessed by God isn't to receive riches from him, but rather it's to do what this is saying, that at the end of this letter, after all of this stuff, what does the author say? What does he want that God could do for you? Simply this, that you could do his will. That's what it means. That's what it means to be blessed. That's what it means to live a life of meaning and purpose, that you can simply live in the will of God. Anything apart from the will of God will end up being hollow, shallow, and pointless. It will feel like you were just running on the treadmill of life, trying to stay ahead of those running on treadmills next to you.
But to live in the will of God, now that could have meaning and purpose. Your life can have meaning and purpose. If you want to know what a blessed life looks like, don't, don't look at Instagram. Don't look at Facebook. Don't look at people that are influencing you, showing you. these great vacations or what billions of dollars could do for you. No, if we wanna know what a blessed life looks like, who better to look at than Jesus himself? Can't we all agree that he lived a blessed life? That he lived in the will of God. That he followed after God at all times.
And as we look to Jesus, we see a man who is born into a humble family and worked a blue collar job. We see a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. He wasn't rich, he wasn't known for his physical beauty. He was executed as a criminal before he hit middle age and had to start shaving his head. By the world's standards. He was cursed, if you look at Christ, but we know. We know that he is blessed. That by God's standards, he was the most blessed person to ever walk the earth. And all that Jesus wants, all that he wants to do his whole life, is to walk in the will of the Father.
Listen, I've got, I'm bringing receipts. I've got. I've got several verses here. Jesus walking in the will of the Father. John chapter 5. So Jesus said to them, truly, truly I say to you, the son can do nothing on his own accord, but only what his father, but, but only what he sees his father doing. For whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise. He just wants to do the will of the Father. 5:30, I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just, but I seek not my own will, but the will of Him who sent me. Jesus directed his life towards the will of the Father, verse 6:38, for I've come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me, 8:29, and he who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to him. And finally, 17:4, I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do.
To live in the will of God is to live a blessed life. If you want to wear one of those bracelets, you guys remember the WWJD bracelets? What would Jesus do? You just, if you want to live like Jesus, if you wanna be like him, you have to be obsessed with doing the will of God. We spend our lives. Trying to get God to do our will in heaven. That's what it means to be blessed in our worldly mindset. My will be done in heaven. But God says that to be blessed is to do His will on earth. We think about blessing as God saying yes to us. I want this. I need this. Instead, the scripture says that to be blessed is for us to say yes to God. Saying yes to God, doing his will is actually the only thing that will satisfy your soul. We are looking for blessing from God, but it's right here. Through following Jesus, you can be empowered to do the will of God.
Augustine, put it this way, early church father, you have made us for yourself, oh Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you. CS Lewis, likewise, another great author, much later than Augustine, says it like this. He says, if I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. So what does it mean to do the will of God? Let me just finish up like this. How do you walk in the will of God, if that's what it means to be blessed. It means that you seek to follow Jesus, no matter what it cost, and in every situation that you go to Jesus and you can start today by saying, Here I am. Whatever you would have is better than my plans. That your plans for me are better. Your way is the best way. I've lived my life in rejection of you, but I'm finally giving my life to you.
But here's the thing, we, we can't do it ourselves. You can't just do the will of God, but you have to have. A change from the inside out, that Jesus has to empower you. That's why he's praying this, that you may be able, may this God give you the strength to do His will. And how does God give you the strength to do His will? But through the power of the resurrection coursing through your veins, through the power of Jesus Christ risen from the dead, living in you, that when you place your faith in Christ, that you also are raised with him.
Colossians chapter one. We chapter 3, verse 1. If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. In Christ we receive a better blessing than what any parent can bestow upon us. Because as he was going to be baptized, Christ heard from the Father, the sky opened to the Spirit descended on him as a dove. And God the Father said, this is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased. And when you place your faith in Christ through the mystery of the gospel, you were made one with Christ. You are united with him, and the way that the Father loves Jesus becomes true of you, that he can look at you, church and say, this is my son with whom I am well pleased. Infinitely better than our fathers, speaking an infinitely better word to us today.
And through that sense of acknowledgement of affirmation of love from God, that God really loves you through Christ. We're given the resources to do the will of God, that we know that His love is worth us living for him. Augustine, again, another quote from him. He says, command what you will and give what you command. And that's the secret to living the will of God. You see, the benediction of Hebrews isn't merely a goodbye, but it's a God be with you. To God be with you. In fact, the last words, when we think about the last words of Jesus himself. What does he say? As a benediction to his people, but surely I will be with you always, until the end of ages. And that is the reality that we walk in today as his followers, that he is with us until the end of the age.
And so as we come to our communion meal. I want this to guide your prayer time here. You, you have an opportunity to, reflect, and we have a, a slide that will show you how we think about this. That this will give you a moment to reflect this communion meal. That you can ask the Lord, what, what do you have for me today? What is in your word? And one of the things that you can pray today. I Your way is better than my way, God. And whatever you have, I will take. And let the Lord just show you what that is. What is that? Your way is better. The way that we do communion here is on the night that he was betrayed, Jesus took a loaf of bread, and he, and he said, This is my body broken for you. And he took a cup and he said, This is my blood shed for you. Do this in remembrance of me.
And so if you're a Christian here this morning, if you are following Christ with your whole life, we invite you to the table. If you're not a Christian, we're so glad that you're here, checking things out. We would encourage you to receive the good news of Jesus. But the communion meal is the only part of the service that we ask you not to participate in until you've until you've come to know him. And so as we prepare our hearts to receive this meal, Let's be reminded of the love of God and who Christ is. This is an opportunity for you to seek Him, to repent of any sin that you might be carrying, and to be reminded of who he has done, what he has done for you and who he is, what's he he empowering you for.
So if you would stand with me as we pray, I'm going to conclude with a quote and then a prayer. This is from Robert Murray McShane. He says this, Learn much of the Lord Jesus. For every look at yourself, take ten looks at Christ. He's altogether lovely. Such infinite majesty, and yet such meekness and grace, and all for sinners, even the chief. Live much in the smiles of God, bask in his beams, feel his all-seeing eyes settled on you in love and repose in his almighty arms. Let your soul be filled with a heart ravishing sense of the sweetness and excellency in all of Christ and all that is in him. Let's pray.
Father, as we prepare to come to your table, we pray that you would prepare our hearts. I pray for anyone who doesn't know you this morning, that they would come to a saving faith in you, that you would change them from the inside out, that they might have the strength to do the will of God. That you would bless us, that we would know what it means to walk, to to walk in your ways, to bask in your smile, to enjoy your privileges of being a child. And we ask all of this in Christ's name. Amen.